“In our place in Heilongjiang, it’s extremely cold in winter!” “Why is it so cold?” “Let me tell you, you have to wear a pee when you go to the ‘Maodaozi’ (toilet) in winter. Put on a small stick and urinate at the same time, otherwise you will freeze. "Ah! Is it so cold?" "I'm not trying to scare you, it's true!" This is what I heard about Heilongjiang in the 1970s. A joke about conversations between people and southerners. However, although the words are exaggerated, it is a fact that in the winter in Heilongjiang, the breath turns into frost and the dripping water turns into ice. As the saying goes, "The chin falls off due to the cold during the seventh and eighth lunar month", it is a description of the number nine and three points in the middle of winter. This is enough to make southerners "turn cold and cold". In Harbin, temperatures of more than 20 degrees below zero are common in winter. In Mohe Arctic Village, there were records of more than 50 degrees below zero.
In the past, Heilongjiang people had their own way to resist the severe cold - men and women wore "all-in-one" large sloping-breasted cotton-padded jackets and t-shirts made of black or blue cloth. Crotch cotton pants. In order to prevent the cold wind from entering the clothes, men like to tie cloth belts, and women wrap their ankles. Men's feet were made of cowhide, pigskin, and later cotton and rubber shoes, while women's feet were made of home-made thousand-layer cotton shoes. Some also wore cattail shoes, and later cotton and rubber shoes. Men wear fur hats, mainly dog-skin hats, while women, in addition to wearing cotton scarves and brimmed cotton hats, also wear dog-skin hats and other fur hats. Especially when a woman goes on a long journey, she has to borrow a dog-skin hat to wear if she doesn’t have one. Haha, this is not a comedy, it is the orthodox winter attire worn by Heilongjiang people in the past.
Some people may ask, in the vast forests and green grasslands of Heilongjiang, there are many furs of wild animals that can be used as hats. Why did you choose this dog skin hat? !
Indeed, there are a lot of furs that can be used to make hats in Heilongjiang. For example, otter skin, mink skin, etc. are all precious furs. In the early years in the Northeast, people regarded mink, along with ginseng and cattail grass, as the "Three Treasures of the Northeast". Mink fur is not only expensive, but even if it is made into a hat, it is not suitable for covering the wind and cold in the countryside. It can only become an accessory on the heads of high-status people in big cities. Fox skin and raccoon skin are also rare items. They can be made into hats that are both light and warm. However, because they are expensive, most people cannot afford to wear them. In that era, anyone who wore a fox or raccoon fur hat would be envied. Mountain rabbit is easy to get, but its skin is thin and brittle, not strong, and its hair is not worn. A mountain rabbit skin hat was worn for a winter and the hair on the back near the neck became polished. Compared with many other fur hats, dog skin hats are not only much cheaper, but also have thick and long velvet, which is comfortable and windproof, and wear-resistant. Therefore, from the practice of use, people "weighed the pros and cons" and wore dog-skin hats that were both economical and affordable. From this point of view, wearing dog-skin hats is a popular choice among people in the Northeast, especially in Heilongjiang.
The old-fashioned dog-skin hat is a watermelon-flap helmet, with a front face, a back girth, ears on both sides, and a vent above the ears to the ears. little hat ears. Every winter, in Heilongjiang's blue sky, white snow and black soil, people wearing dog-skin hats of different colors can be seen everywhere, as if they are splashing colors to embellish this beautiful picture of ice and snow, showing off their grace.
In the past, people living in Heilongjiang liked to keep dogs to guard their homes and homes. Someone's bitch has given birth to pups. Before she can give birth to pups, neighbors, relatives and friends come to greet her "his uncle" and "her aunt" early in the morning. The dog owner also calls: "Waiting for you." The bitch has given birth to a pup, please leave one for me!" "Okay! Come over here often, otherwise the bitch will not be able to keep the pups, and someone else will run away if you come late." , I don’t know how many pups a female dog can give birth to, but people who want pups have already “numbered” them first. The news that the bitch had given birth to pups spread like wildfire, and people who wanted pups came to take a look every day after dinner. The bitch was very protective of her pups. While feeding the blind pups with her own milk, she looked at people very warily, and sometimes even "Woof! Woof!" The ground barked several times, and the owner yelled at the bitch. Everyone was still talking about the tiger-headed puppy.
When the puppy opened its eyes, the owner took advantage of the bitch not paying attention, handed the puppy to the person who wanted the puppy, covered the puppy with clothes, took it home, and fed it millet and rice soup to raise it day by day. The bitch's worries were in vain, as she gave birth to several pups, which were eventually taken away one after another. Sometimes, if the owner leaves a puppy, that is the bitch's luck, otherwise it would be really pitiful. The puppies gradually grow into big dogs, and they need to be raised as puppies. Some people keep two or three dogs. At that time, dog owners often named their dogs according to their body shape and coat color, such as "big black" or "big yellow", or "flower neck" or "four eyes", which were very visual.
Although "cats are 'treacherous ministers' and dogs are 'loyal ministers'" and dogs and humans are good friends, old dogs still need to be strangled. There is a folk saying of "killing the donkey after pulling the dog", but this is definitely not "strangling the dog after watching the hospital"! People are accustomed to smothering dogs during the dog days, eating dog meat, and making dog meat soup, which is a great food. The scraped dog skin is dried and tanned with saltpeter or alumina, also called "cooked skin". The cooked dog skin is cut into dog skin hats, and can also be used to make dog skin mattresses, dog skin socks, dog skin handbags, and dog skin covers. Sleeves, dog-skin chaps, etc. Later, when there were supply and marketing cooperatives in the villages and local product stores and tanneries in the counties, people sold their dog skins and went to the stores to buy dog ??skin hats to wear.
I suddenly remembered those idioms and phrases about dogs, such as wolf heart and dog lungs, dog jumping over the wall, dog blood spraying head, dog eyes looking at people, dogs relying on human power, chickens crowing and dogs stealing, fox friends and dogs, chicken intestines and dog belly, dog The mouth cannot spit out ivory, dog-headed strategist, dog-headed rat brain, etc. It is true that every idiom and phrase is the crystallization of the wisdom of our ancestors, and has its allusions, origins, and conventions. It can be said that dogs are full of treasures, but they carry many derogatory words, which seems a bit "unfair".
Speaking of "wearing a dog-skin hat on your head" brings back unforgettable memories for me.
The hair on the dog-skin hats worn by my second brother and me has long since been rubbed off in several places. After our family moved from Laotun to the county town, my father spent tens of yuan a month. The family's living expenses are not high enough, and there is no spare money to buy new dog-skin hats for us brothers. Later, my father's good friend, Uncle Shugui, one of the "Iron Triangle", saw this and bought my second brother and I each a dog-skin hat with yellow cloth and yellow fur at the county department store. We brothers were very happy. During the winter vacation, the two of us returned to Laotun. We went to Xihetao to play with dog sledges with our eldest cousin, we went to play sledges on the east hillside with our uncle, and we pulled wormwood stalks back from the meadow with our third uncle’s horse sledges. Although the cold wind in the wilderness was biting, we still But I felt happy because I was wearing a new dog-skin hat.
After my family "set up camp" in Laozhifang Hutong, the county seat, we raised a white dog. Speaking of this white dog, there is quite a story. The second younger brother likes dogs very much, but is too embarrassed to ask for puppies. Coincidentally, one day neighbor Tian Fatty told the second brother that someone had thrown a puppy into the garbage dump on the east side of the road. When the second brother heard this, he ran out of the alley and picked up the puppy in the garbage. The puppies are just born and haven’t opened their eyes yet. If you look closely, you will see that it is covered in white hair and its face is half black and half white, which makes it look a little special. The second brother happily took the puppy home, gave him a bath, fed him rice soup with sugar, cuddled him in the bed at night, and let the puppy lie on his chest to play... The puppy opened his mouth The family found that one of the eyes was blue and the other was red, so they named the puppy "Yin Yang Eyes". The "yin and yang eyes" grew up day by day. The blue eye was almost covered by the white eyes during the day, and the red eye glowed brighter at night. The "yin and yang eyes" are both popular and "in charge of affairs". The second brother whistled from afar, and it immediately ran from the yard to Zhi Sahuan in front of him and behind him. In winter, the second brother used strips of cloth to make bags and two small wooden poles as shafts. He whipped the dog and taught it to pull the sledge. It works very hard to pull the sledge, sometimes a basket of coal, sometimes half a bag of grain. When my mother worked at the Liangdian Pancake Factory, it would wait outside before getting off work. When my mother walked home from get off work, it would jump up and down beside her. Later, "Yin Yang Eyes" became a little unruly. It doesn't bite others, but only bites Uncle Chen who comes to pick up swill every day.
As soon as Uncle Chen entered the hospital, he pounced on him and bit his trouser leg without letting go. Uncle Chen was so angry that he broke the pole and even touched the wire. Later, Aunt Wang's chickens in the east courtyard lost one or two chicks every day, and she initially thought they were eaten by weasels, but one day she was caught in the act. The father was worried that the "yin and yang eye" would cause trouble again, so he asked his second brother to strangle it to death. The second brother said that "Yin Yang Eye" had never been tied up since he was a child. The day I tied a rope around its neck, it refused to move and kept pulling back, crying. The "yin and yang eye" ended the dog's life on the old willow tree west of Fangxi. The family members remembered the dog's contribution to guarding the house and the courtyard, and couldn't bear to peel off the dog's skin and eat the dog's meat, so they dug a deep hole and buried it.
There are many legends about dogs, but the legends about Nurhaci being "rescued by dogs" and "rescued by magpies" are widely circulated in the Northeast. Because of this, there is also a saying that the Manchus do not kill dogs, eat dog meat, or wear dog skin hats. But legends are legends, and legends are legends. In my opinion, the spirituality of dogs and their ability to capture prey should be the real reasons why Manchu people love dogs.
When we came to the old Jiangjiayao site where Zhang Jiazhou led the Bayan guerrillas to fire the first anti-Japanese shot of the Communist Party, we seemed to see people wearing dog-skin hats. We are a mighty and unyielding team of oath-takers; when we stood in front of the relief wall of the Anti-Japanese Allied Forces in the Northeast of Jingbo Lake, we seemed to hear the gunshots of the Anti-Japanese Allied Forces soldiers wearing dog-skin hats fighting the Japanese invaders in the white mountains and black waters; when we stood in front of the relief wall of the Anti-Japanese Allied Forces in the Northeast of Jingbo Lake When we visited the Hailin Weihu Mountain Landscape and the Yang Zirong Memorial Hall, the scene of bandit heroes wearing dog-skin hats working in the forest and snowfields appeared in front of us as if they were in a movie; when we came to the front lines of the Shuangcheng Liberation War, When I visited the old site of the headquarters, I looked through those old photos and reproduced the battle scenes in which the PLA officers and soldiers wearing dog-skin hats climbed on the ice and lay in the snow, charged into battle, risked their lives, and bravely killed the enemy. When we visited the Daqing Ironman Wang Jinxi Memorial Hall, the physical display soaked in the soil of the Songnen Plain silently described the entrepreneurs wearing dog-skin hats and cotton-padded suits. Their heroic spirit; when we visited the "No. 1 Village in Longjiang" - Xingshisi Village in Gannan, through the village history exhibition, we followed the footsteps of the pioneers in Guandong who wore dog-skin hats and traveled through time and space... …
"Wearing a dog-skin hat on your head" shows off its grace, which not only decorates the boring midwinter in the North, but also gives people in the ice and snow the courage and strength to defeat nature. , "The dog-skin hat on the head" has left us with glory, but the series of touching stories and wonderful chapters written behind will warm my heart!